If you are just joining me in this rabbit hole without reading my Stage 1 postfor background, you might want to hop out and do that first.  There’s some background in that one which this post is built upon.  That ended with bill to give the Secretary of the Interior the ability to decide which tribe becomes federally recognized, thus enabling him to take land into trust for those tribes.  What you need to know is there is a huge push by the green movement to expand on reservations. 

Van Jones, our former Green Jobs Czar addressed this in his infamous speech.  Carl Pope, Executive Directer of the Sierra Club wrote an opinion piece on clean energy jobs in the Bimidji Pioneer, a newspaper in a town in northern MN just miles away from the Leech Lake Reservation. 

The Senate must fight back against these old polluting industries and tell them it’s time to pay their fair share.

More redistribution of wealth can be found from Earthjustice, Indigenous Environmental Network, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Sierra Club who are all working together on environmental activities in various Midwest states.  At a D.C. conference “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” in Feb 2009 sponsored  by the Blue-Green Alliance, Winona Duke spoke on this as well.

(For a picture of Van Jones with Winona Duke, a leading American Indian environmental activist, click here)

Winona Duke of Honor the Earth told of her Ojibwa people’s 2000 year old prophecy for today: two paths lie before us. One is well worn but scorched; the other new & green. Indians want apprenticeships & training to tap the wind power potential of reservations, America’s windiest places, as 25% of all U.S. power could come from Indian lands.

This conference was a mix of

about 2,700 labor, environmental, agency, community, and faith-based advocates with the intent on working together to urgently push forward the new green economy to not only save the plant but also the people. The conference was organized by the Blue-Green Alliance, of which the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club are founding members.

The problem with all this is, as we have seen in Spain, green jobs actually hurt communities and lower jobs.  The American Indian leadership is being taken over by people who will move the Indian Nation into socialism.  Complete dependence on the State.  The very ones who are saying they will help them are going to shackle them even tighter unless they can break free.  The Indian Nation must return to the wisdom of their ancient forefathers and fight against a federal government who would take the remaining freedoms they have.  They need a return to the spirit and wisdom of ages.  There is a hand held out to them in hope but the other hand is hidden and is holding ropes and chains. 

And there is the possibility for a Stage 3 as well.

While watching events unfold concerning the Ft Hood massacre last week, I was struck like many, over Obama’s apparent callousness.  Before addressing that tragedy, he felt no unease about joking with the audience before him.  Why were those people more important than speaking to the nation about a possible terror attack on our own soil?  That got me wondering what kind of group it was and why it was so important that many of his advisers and staff were involved in such a hands on way.  Come to find out it was the White House Tribal Nations Conference being held at the Dept of the Interior.  A meeting like this had not occurred since President Clinton and yes, I think Bush dropped the ball here.  Why this conference now?  What was being proposed?  To what end?  Unfortunately with this administration, you have to always ask what their motives are.  What is their ultimate goal?

This caught my attention because I am an eighth American Indian.  My grandmother is half Ojibway from the Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota.  She is currently in a mismanaged government long term care facility receiving questionable care.  There is a saying in the American Indian community.  Don’t get sick after June because there won’t be any money for your care until January.  If you want to see what Obamacare will look like nationwide, look to the reservations. 

But this isn’t about healthcare so much as the big picture of the relationship between the American Indians and this administration.  Inside the Executive Branch, we have:

Kimberly Teehee, White House Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs

Jodi Gilette, White House Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs

Stacey Ecoffey, Principal Advisor for Tribal Affairs

Yvette Roubideaux, Indian Health Services Director

Nicole Willis, Department of Labor Special Assistant for Indian Affairs

Larry Echohawk, Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs.

The White House Tribal Nations conference consisted of 564 leaders of all federally recognized tribes in the US.  It was held for three days culminating in final full day with Obama and his people.  Here are some of the highlights.  On November 3, some leaders met with Nancy Pelosito get the American Indians included in the health care bill.  They also met with HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.  November 4 saw a meeting with Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan of the Department of Agriculture.  On November 5, it was the Department of Labor’s turn with Secretary Hilda Solis and all day talks between the various groups.  What we saw was Obama’s closing address to this conference.  Finally, November 7, many met with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik.  This meeting took place at the new National Congress of American Indians Embassy of Tribal Nations building in D.C. hosted by the National American Indian Housing Council.  Also included during the week were fundraising meetings for Rep. Dan Brown (D-OK), Rep Ben Lujan (D-NM), Rep Charlie Melancan (D-LA) and candidate Felton Newell running for CA 33rd district.  Interesting that the people who went to D.C. looking for money are spending $500-$2500 per plate at these fundraisers, huh?  Here is the complete schedule. 

On the surface, this all seems innocuous enough.  After all, the Indian Nation is a sovereign nation, right?  They are supposed to be having government to government talks.  But are they truly sovereign?  When they rely on the federal government for their food, housing, clothes, jobs, health care, and anything else a person needs to survive I would argue that they are little more than slaves.  Once in this country, the American Indian was a symbol of self-sufficiency, of pride and strength, of wisdom.  Now, however, that same Indian is a sad drunk with his hand out.  Suicide rates among American Indians is the highest in the country.  Assault against women, alcoholism and meth use are rampant.  Last week, they were told the only way to solve their problems is to turn once again to the federal government.  Rather than standing on their own two feet, they repeatedly shackle themselves to DC.  Rather than expunging the widespread corruption in their own leadership, they follow them blindly.  They are willing to trade their land for coppers.

In February of this year, the Supreme Court ruledon Carcieri v. Salazar.  In short, this stated that only tribes recognized as of the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act can acquire land held in trust by the Secretary of the Interior.  It also emphasizes that Congress alone has the power to recognize tribes not listed in the 1934 act.

However, later this year, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI) introduced H.R. 3742 which will delegate authority from Congress to the Secretary of the Interior to decide who is a tribe.  Basically, it will give him power to decide who gets land and who loses it.  At a House Committee of Natural Resources hearing last week, Matthew Spencer from the Department of Justice argued for the “elimination of the  temporal restrictions” and to “codify the Secretary’s decisions since 1934″.  Rep. Don Young (R-AK) said that this bill  would “impede the regional corporation to have control of subsurface rights”.  He also said that in 1971, Alaska made the decision notto allow the Sec of the Int to take the land in trust.  In spite of that, the governor, Attorney General, congressional delegation, and the regional corporatin were not notified of the language of the bill.  It, in fact, includes Alaska in the wording.  Since 1934, 6-7 million acres across the country have been taken into trust by the federal government.

http://resources.edgeboss.net/wmedia/resources/2009_11_04_full.wvx

Richard Blumenthal, the Attorney General of the state of Connecticut, stated that Congress has the responsibility to recognize tribes and that giving it to Interior would be an “unlawful delegation of congressional power”.  There would be no restraints on the Sec of Int or ”unbridled discretion” as he called it.  He also told the committee that Congress needed to “take back their authority” and offered some solutions.  “Notice, standards, adequate information, basic due process for communities, local and state governments and citizens” were all things which would help solve the problems facing both reservations and communities. 

Steven Woodside, the Sonoma County Councilman from the CA State Association of Counties stated that 70 tribes have applied for land into trust in CA.  This would impact tax roles, road maintenance, as well as basic services like water, sewer and electric.  There are many more problems facing these communities such as law enforcement and healthcare for the people on the reservations. 

What the bill would effectively do, however, is take land from private citizens and give it to the American Indians without warning.  But this is about something bigger.  Do you remember when Van Jones (our former Green Jobs Czar) spoke at the environmental conference?  Speaking of the American Indians, he shouted, “Give them the wealth!  Give them the wealth!  Give them the dignity!”  This is moving our country closer to wealth redistribution, social justice, and reparations.  But there is much more, in Stage 2.

With 9/11 coming on Friday, I have been thinking inevitably back on that day and on subsequent ones in the past few years.  I wanted to put my thoughts together and see how things have changed, how I have changed since then.  I’m sure there will be a lot of commentary this week on the same subject but this is for me.

On September 10th, I thought I was pregnant with our third child but the home tests came back negative.  Not trusting them, I did another the morning of Sept 11th.  Still negative.  Watching the morning news as the day progressed, I was scared for my two small children.  What kind of world would they grow up in?  Would they grow up?  When the towers fell, they couldn’t understand why I was crying and I was unable to explain it to them.  I usually sang “Edelweiss”  to them at bedtime but this night I couldn’t get through it.  “Bless my homeland forever” took on new meaning for me.  I have not been able to sing it since without choking up.  The next day, Sept 12th, I took yet another test.  Positive.  I was devastated.  How could we bring another child into this upside down world?  The 13th was my birthday.  Happy 31st.  The days following drew our country together in self-righteous rage.  And we looked to the silent skies.

Fast forward to September 11, 2004.  We are at war in Iraq.  Planes were once again flying.  I was pregnant with number 4.  My then two year old had just been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.  My husband had left two weeks before for Iraq as a contractor driving convoy for one year.  During this time in my life, I had to reach into the deepest part of me to find the strength to plug on.  If not for my faith in God and close relationships with friends and family, I would not have made it.  On that third anniversary of 9/11, I was proud of my husband and my country for doing what I believed was a just cause in a just war.  But I was afraid I would never see him again.  Afraid I wasn’t up to the job that no one asked me to do.  It just had to be done.  Somehow, we made it.  Better, stronger as family than ever before.

And now September 11, 2009.  Americans will remember the horror of that day with sadness and a deep sense of lost naivete.  As for me and my family, we will be watching from outside the country.  After almost five years in Iraq, my husband was able to get a job with another contractor in Kuwait.  After all that time apart, we decided to sell everything and join him.  It was the best move we have ever made.  Our family is strong.  The work he does is essential to the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and I am extremely proud of him.  But watching and reading the things going on back home is very painful as there is nothing I can do to help.  I put my two cents in here and elsewhere, locally when I can.  But it doesn’t take the place of being there physically.  This week, as people gather to rally in D.C. from all over the country and in their hometowns, I am encouraged.  For those who are going to these rallies, know that I and others like me are with you in spirit.  We are no longer the deaf, blind people of 9/10 or the scared people of 9/11.  We are wide awake and aware of the dangers inside our own country and government.  This year, looking at our country from the outside, I am incredibly proud of its’ citizens.   We are once again bound together in our anger towards tyranny.  No one asked us to do it.  It just has to be done and we have found the strength to do it.  We will make it.  And we will be stronger and better as a nation because of it.

I still look up when I hear an airplane and remember the time when the skies were silent.

And I still can’t get through Edelweiss.

“Bless our homeland forever”

On Sept 20th, the Peoples Republic of China flag will be flying high and proud in front of our own White House.  Talk about the audacity of change!

Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC.

Apparently, the U.S. has beholden themselves so much to China, we no longer have the ability to say no to them, up to and including what happens on the American people’s front lawn.

The main groups who have pushed for this are the Union of Chinese American Professional Organizations, Coordination Council of Chinese-American Associations, and the US-Fujian Association as well as other overseas Chinese organizations.

Chen Ronghua, chairman of the US-Fujian Association, was the proponent of the event.

“It was always my dream to raise a Chinese flag in the center of Washington DC,” he told the Global Times. “This year, my motherland’s 60th birthday, is the perfect time for it.”

Also:

Chen Ronghua, a Spokesman for the Fujian Association, said that permission was approved because of closer China-U.S. relations in recent years. And because, “Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing’s Olympics,” he said.

Really?  This has NOTHING to do with the hundreds of billions or dollars we have borrowed from the Chinese.  Or that we have lost most of our manufacturing to them?  Nope.  Thank you Clinton, Bush and Obama.  Appreciate it.

Yes, I’ll bet it was Stalin’s dream to hoist the stars and sickle over Buckingham Palace but that didn’t happen.  The Communists have learned we cannot be defeated by war but by economics and slow infiltration.  Of course, it helps when you have a Marxist in the White House.

Well, no not really.  Did you honestly think that would happen?  I ran across the latest legislation passed on Friday which included their budget for 2009/2010 fiscal year.  Blood shot out of my eyes.  I’m including a few of the great highlights but you can find the full text here. 

HOUSE LEADERSHIP OFFICES

All this for a grand total of $1,375,200,000!  Can’t wait to see the fight on the Senate floor about how we must all sacrifice and tighten our belts because our country is in a recession.  We can’t expect to live like we did before, right?  We have to give up our piece of the pie, right?  I’m so glad the House is becoming models of thriftiness. 

Quick list:

Members Clerk Hire, Official of Expenses Members, and Official Mail: $660,000,000

Allowances and Expences: $317,840,000

Botanic Garden: $11,263,000 not to be mistaken for 

Capital Grounds: $10,920,000

And my personal favorite:

SEC. 102. Effective with respect to fiscal year 2010 and each succeeding fiscal year, the aggregate amount otherwise authorized to be appropriated for a fiscal year for the lump-sum allowance for each of the following offices is increased as follows:

(1) The allowance for the office of the Majority Whip is increased by $96,000.

                   (2) The allowance for the office of the Minority Whip is increased by $96,000.

Republicans who voted in favor of this legislation are as follows:

Robert Aderholt (AL)                                                Donald Young (AK)

Jerry Lewis (CA)                                                       Ander Crenshaw (FL)

C.W. Young (FL)                                                       Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL)                                          Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)

Michael Simpson (ID)                                              Mark Kirk (IL)

Thomas Latham (IA)                                                Anh Cao (LA)

Joanne Emerson (MO)                                             Leonard Lance (NJ)

Tom Cole (OK)                                                         Zach Wamp (TN)

John Carter (TX)                                                       Shelley Capito (WV)

The Philadelphia Women’s Center gave out free abortions today in honor of Dr. Tiller.  The news went out on Twitter:

Philadelphia Women’s Center is performing FREE ABORTIONS today in honor of Dr. Tiller. Right on, PWC.

A worker at the clinic said that an unspecified number of abortions had been performed during the day, but that they had stopped giving them away by late afternoon.

It sounds like a stretch, I know, but stay with me on this.  Currently, there is a bill in the Senate called the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) to change the wording of the Federal Water Polution Control Act of 1972 to include both navigable and unnavigable waters on public and private lands.  This is being reported as supported by sportsmen across the country for cleaning up all of our waters everywhere.  The problem is these sportsmen are a group supported by over twenty unions including the AFL-CIO.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is a group of activists whose mission is stated here:

The TRCP is a coalition of hunting, fishing and conservation organizations, labor unions and individual grassroots partners who represent the wide spectrum of America’s outdoor community.  We are dedicated to the foresighted stewardship of America’s landscape, helping to expand fish and wildlife habitat and increasing public access to quality hunting and fishing. 

This “increasing public access to quality hunting and fishing” apparently includes private lands, regardless of the owners rights.  If they have their way, owners won’t have rights on their own property.  All waters will be public and thus open for public hunting and fishing.  According to the TRCP president and CEO, George Cooper, they are very happy with the additions in Obama’s budget which affects them including climate change and the Open Fields program.

“But we’re disappointed that the President’s budget also includes cuts and restrictions on other programs aimed at conserving habitat on private lands and encouraging property owners to open their lands to hunters and anglers. As the budget goes forward, we look forward to working with the administration and our allies in the House and Senate to ensure that sportsmen programs across the board receive necessary funding.”

These people are trying to get their hands on private property, something protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Admittedly, their argument sounds great.  They are just concerned about quality and quantity of land and water, right?  They want freedom for hunters and fishermen to access wherever they desire to go.   That is where the Clean Water Restoration Act comes in.

On May 20, 2009, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,  received a letter from the White House in response to her inquiry for instructions pertaining to the Clean Water Restoration Act.  The letter is signed by Nancy Sutley-Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, Lisa Jackson-Administrator Environmental Protection Agency, Terrence “Rock” Salt-Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works), Tom Vilsack-Secretary Department of Agriculture, and Ken Salazar Secretary Department of the Interior.  The first directive states that:

It is essential that the Clean Water Act provide broad protection of the Nation’s waters, consistent with full Congressional authority under the Constitution.

I’m not sure where the Constitution addresses the power of the federal government over water on private property.  I’d like to see how they’re justifying that.  They also want to make sure there is:

a carefully crafted statutory exemption for “prior converted cropland” would be useful to both farmers and Federal agencies. 

Apparently we missed the cast change but we have a new set of superheroes.  George Soros, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, David Rockefeller recently met to discuss “charitable giving”.  Really?  Somehow, I think they talked about things other than a new homeless shelter in DC.  Here’s the report from ABC complete with the new cartoon.

Here they come to save the day!

This disgusts me.  Frankly, I’m appalled and embarassed for my fellow countrymen.  I can understand how easy it is to tune out the news sometimes and just watch mindless tv.  I do it myself (or my husband makes me when I start throwing things at the tv again).  But we have a duty and a responsibility in this country to try to keep our politicians in check.  To educate ourselves and to make informed decisions when we get to the polling booths.  We need to know what is going on in Washington because it really does affect all of us.   This has been around in the news and online. 

Here is the breakdown of the Rasmussen poll:

For those of you who don’t know, excluding redstate regulars of course,

Broadly speaking, cap-and-trade proposals involve having the government set limits on what pollutants can be emitted. Then it auctions off permits for certain emissions and allows companies to trade the permits as needed.

The companies buying those permits will then send the added cost on to us, the consumer.  So it is a new energy tax and the lower to middle classes will be the hardest hit.  Simple yet amazing, isn’t it?  And they don’t understand it!  More think it’s about Wall Street.  And 30 % are just openly clueless.  I wonder how many guessed and got lucky?

Looking at events this week, I’d say yes.  I am just as happy as anyone that Nancy P. is (hopefully) getting her just desserts.  (Happy dance)  But something is bothering me.  Why is the White House so quiet on this subject this week?  Why are CNN, MSM and others in attack mode when usually they would be circling the wagons and spitting bluster everywhere?  People in Congress are not standing by her.  What is going on behind the scenes?  Do I sound cynical?  I feel cynical.  I don’t trust anything that happens with the Dem leadership and this administration.  They are masters at making us look at the right hand while the left hand steals more of our freedoms and spends more money. 

I think we need to be especially diligent in the next few weeks in watching what they all are doing.  We need to dig deeper and uncover what they’re doing and why.  We can’t underestimate this administration.  They are brilliant at controlling the media and public attention.  Am I starting to feel paranoid?  I hope it’s unfounded.  I’d really like to be wrong about this but I think there’s something really big in the works that they don’t want us to see.